


Dead inside

by Gaia_bing



Category: Spartacus Series (TV), Spartacus: Vengeance, Spartacus: War of the Damned
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Episode: s03e09 The Dead and the Dying, Grief/Mourning, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-29
Updated: 2014-06-29
Packaged: 2018-02-06 16:09:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1864023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gaia_bing/pseuds/Gaia_bing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The dead and the dying"...modernized.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dead inside

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, it is another one shot! But, I've already written the next chapter of "The Honeymooners" and this one's coming over the next week. Hope you guys enjoy this one in the meantime! :)

...oh.

Oh god.

Looking down, he realized that the phone that he'd been holding so tightly inside his hand just a couple of seconds earlier was now laying on the wooden ground underneath him and somehow, he hadn't noticed. He hadn't hear seen the cell drop out of his fingers nor did he hear its crashing sound.

No, he couldn't see anything...he couldn't hear anything, because, because...

Because.

Because of what Naevia had told him just a few seconds ago and why his cellphone had fallen on the floor of his apartment just now.

_"There was a fire at the club. Crixus...they couldn't do anything for Crixus. And Agron...he got inside to get some people out. But Nasir, there was an explosion, because of a leak in the gas tank inside the kitchen. They...they think Agron was where the explosion took place. Agron...Agron's dead, Nasir."_

It...

It couldn't be true, right?

Agron...he wasn't dead...right?

He was going to call him and walk through the front door of his apartment any minute now, smiling that goofy smile like he always did, then he would sweep Nasir inside his arms and kiss the breath right out of him... right?

And then they would be living happily ever after, like they promised each other over and over that they would. They would get married, live inside a little house with a little white fence and raise lots and lots of babies together...

_Right?_

Agron better be calling now, because if he wasn't...then that meant that what Naevia had just told him was true and it couldn't be true, because Agron couldn't be dead. He couldn't be dead...

He couldn't be...he couldn't be...

He...he was....he...he was...

Oh.

Oh, _god_.

************

He hadn't come out of his bedroom for days, not eating and not sleeping, only drowning in...what was the word again?

Anguish?

Despair?

Pain?

Sorrow?

Sadness?

Grief?

All of those combined?

He didn't know and fuck, he didn't care. He didn't care about anything, except the tears that constantly flooded down his cheeks and drowned his pillows and his sheets over and over again. Holding one of Agron's old sweatshirt inside his hands, rocking back and forth, drowning himself inside its sweet scent.

A scent that he would never had the chance to smell again, at least not on a living person.

Oh, god, there went another wave of whatever that he was feeling.

He plunged his face inside the worn-out piece of clothing to muffle out his loud sobs.

**************

It was his fault that Agron was gone.

He just knew it.

It was... it surely was... because of what happened in the last couple of weeks before the incident.

The way that he'd spotted the new transfer student on the University campus where he'd been studying, a dark-skinned man named Castus and had instantly found him to be very attractive. But he would never betray Agron in that way, never in a million years. He loved Agron, he really did. But that didn't stop the fact that he appreciated the sight of the other man and sometimes found himself blushing and giggling at the other man's playful smiles and winking eyes.

And the way Castus would constantly and openly flirt with him and in front of Agron nonetheless...sweet lord.

But here he was now, as a simple friend, trying to console a grieving and destroyed man.

They were alone, inside Nasir's apartment, sitting at the dinner table, Castus with a determined look on his face, pushing a plate of salad in front of Nasir's empty and tired eyes.

"Come on, Nasir, you've gotta eat something. You're going to waste yourself away if you keep going on like this." he said, pushing the plate once more.

"I...I'm not hungry." were the first words that Nasir had whispered for the first time in what seemed like an eternity.

"And Jesus, when's the last time that you actually took a nap? You look just as dead as Agron." Castus had added and by the fiery look that he received from the long haired man, he knew that he'd just said the wrong thing here.

"What did you just say?" Nasir said through gritted teeth.

"Listen man, I didn't mean anything bad by this, I mean..." Castus tried to backtrack.

"You have no right to speak about Agron, none! Do you hear me?" Nasir shouted, pointing an accusing finger at the other man. But, suddenly, he let out an empty laugh as he added: "And besides, you should be happy that he's gone. I mean, here he was, standing between you and me getting together and now that he's nowhere to be found, you can go and claim your price, right?"

"Hey, listen man, I might not have liked Agron, but I never wanted anything bad to happen to him. Not with the way it seems to affect the ones that he loved." Castus whispered sympathetically and gently, he raised a hand to tuck a loose strand of hair against Nasir's ear, when he suddenly felt himself fall on the floor, holding his now bloody nose.

"You son of a bitch! You still wanna get with me even when I'm like this!? You're going to use every kind of excuses just to get inside my pants! Agron's gone because of that!" Nasir yelled once more, getting up from his place on the kitchen chair and standing over his fallen friend.

"Hey, it's not my fault he took that night shift at _Ludus_ with Crixus, okay? He made that choice all on his own and he's gone because of that." Castus defended himself, but he felt his head strike the floor beneath him once more when Nasir once again punched him.

"Agron's gone because of me! He wouldn't have gone that night if he hadn't seen the way I kept looking at you!" And another punch came and then another and then another...

Until Crixus finally caught the long haired man's coming fist and forced him inside a tight hug.

"Hey man, it's okay. It's okay." Crixus whispered against Nasir's hair, but the other man didn't hear him.

All he could think about was Agron. All that he could feel was Agron.

Oh god... _Agron_.

**************

The last words exchanged between the two of them, before Agron had slammed the door behind him, had been:

_"Since you're going to be late tonight, "studying" with Castus, then I'm going to also be late tonight, "bouncing" with Crixus. And... don't expect me back in the morning...I'm going to sleep at his and Naevia's place for a while, to give us a little bit of space to breathe."_

How apropos those words had been, _"Don't expect me back."_   What Agron had first meant by a short separation from all the fighting and all of the jealousy that had been going on between that two of them for a while now had somehow turned prophetic, in a morbid way, Nasir thought to himself as he held Naevia's hand tightly inside his own.

The group of friends was gathered inside Spartacus' apartment, holding a make-shift memorial for their two fallen friends. Telling stories and reminiscing together, to remember them, to grieve for them...

And to even, maybe, let them go.

But Nasir knew he wasn't ready to do that last thing. He wasn't ready to let Agron go.

And deep down, he asked himself if he ever would be.

***************

... _what?_

That's the reaction that Nasir had when he received the news, a couple of days after the memorial.

A phone call, from a hospital a couple of miles from there.

A man had just woken up from a coma, a John Doe found inside an air pocket underneath the rubble of a burnt club, with no papers to identify him. His hands were covered in third degree burns and he was...asking for Nasir?

That man...it couldn't be...could it?

Could it?

That's the question that went around and around his head as he quickly arrived at said hospital, thanks to Castus and his driving skill and when the two of them arrived at Room 236, just like the lady at the reception desk said the man asking for him was.

And then, when he opened the door, Nasir's mind turned into complete mush once again, but for different reason this time around.

There, laying on the bed, with thick bandages rolled tightly around the both of his palms as well as on other places on his body, was Nasir's no-longer-dead boyfriend, his eyes foggy and his breathing heavy.

He...he was breathing.

Agron...Agron wasn't dead.

Agron was alive.

Hurt...but **alive**.

Agron was going to be okay.

Nasir was going to be okay.

The long-haired man delicately took one of Agron's wounded hand inside his own and the other man's blurry stare focused itself as he turned his head around and realized who was sitting just beside his bed.

The tears, those of gratitude instead of grief this time around, fell from Nasir's eyes as he whispered:

"You came back to me."

And Agron could only smile weakly and return Nasir's hold on his hand with a squeeze of his own as he whispered back:

"I never should have left in the first place."

And Nasir smiled back and thought to himself before leaning in and gently place a tender kiss on his once-again-alive boyfriend's lips:

Everything was going to be okay.


End file.
